1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image reproduction for producing an image on a recording material, such as a copying machine, a facsimile or the like.
2. Related Background Art
Conventional copying machine are often unable to reproduce the entire image of an original document in the enlarged copying mode due to the limitation imposed by the size of the recording sheet, which is usually A3 size at maximum. In order to obtain a copy of a size exceeding the maximum sheet size by pasting plural copy sheets together, the operator has to change the direction and position of the original document for each copying (the term "pasting is used throughout this specification and the claims, is a convenient generic term for suitable known methods of joining such sheets together). Also such pasting is cumbersome because the order of copies and the pasting margins thereof are not fixed.
Therefore, there has already been proposed, in commonly-assigned the U.S. Pat. application Ser. No. 889,922, an apparatus capable of dividing an original image and recording the thus divided images respectively on different plural sheets after enlargement. Thus, the entire original image can be recorded in an enlarged size exceeding the size of the recording sheet, by pasting together the sheets on which divided images are respectively recorded.
However, it is desirable that such process should be applicable not only to the entire original image but also to a desired partial area thereof. Also the pasting operation becomes tedious if the original image is divided into an excessively large number of areas. In addition the apparatus will be more convenient for use if the division and enlargement of the image is conducted according to the output image size desired by the operator. Furthermore the divided output images require margins for the pasting operation.